Artist: Lee Se-yong (South Korea)

Korean ceramic artist, Lee Se Yong, creates opposites. Embracing tradition, he refines and redefines basics with modern forms of clay-sculpturing, at the same time working freely with both traditional and modern images. The ancient craft of inlay, spinning and firing is his favoured mode of artistic delivery.

Seeking inspiration from nature, Lee emphasizes imperfection and perfection at the same time. His style is purposely minimalist and at times asymmetrical and roughly textured, seemingly unfinished and flawed. Yet he attains perfection through the intricate artistry of the work. Using blue paint on white porcelain, Lee is concerned with depicting light and shade, delicate lines and bold spaces.

Lee also blends the gap between utility and aestheticism seamlessly. While the idea of the everyday object is not new, Lee’s unique contribution lies in the creation rather than the product and creates ceramic works that are conceptual in ideas and form. 

Artist: Kim Kyung Min (South Korea)

Kim Kyung Min, with her sensitive perception and rich sentiment, reproduces scenes taken from our daily lives and turn them into joyful sculpture works. As a mother of three children and a wife to a husband, Kim Kyung Min finds subjects from everyday happenings at home which is a big part of her life and sculpts three-dimensional figures with an add of her fertile imagination. Kim Kyung Min now bases her work and emphasis around the family theme, each family member's role and their harmony as a whole. In her series of 'A Close Relationship' describing bath time, it shows a couple and a mother-children help each other and build intimacy by bathing together and her 'Homeward Bound' of a family cycling to home reminds viewers that a balance between family members is essential for family peace.

In the flood of abstruse contemporary art that often characterized by abstraction and non-objectivity, concept and "ism", Kim Kyung Min's easily understandable sculpture with humor and universality captures the eyes of contemporaries. The artist wishes to convey warmth and healing with her work to modern people who cannot easily open to others due to hurt and pain. Kim does not aim to make a grandiose aesthetic statement like existential philosophy and artistic discourse. Instead she values basic human ethics that have remained unchanged for long in despite of art historical flow and changes of the time thus practices the original function of the arts. Viewers become a part of this story told by Kim Kyung Min's artificial figures and naturally share the artist's intention of pursuing happiness of daily life and little joys.

Artist: Shih Li-Jen (Taiwan)

Shih Li-Jen was born in Changhua County, Taiwan, 1955, a celebrated art curator and art manager in China and Taiwan. In 2004 and 2006, Shih Li-Jen won a major award of the "Art and Business Aware" from the Council for Culture Affairs, Taiwan. As the years working with international master artists such as César, F. Arman, P. Hiquily ... etc, that arouse his creativity. His paintings and sculptures presented family affection between animals. The works of Rhino Family express his views toward life and world, through the roles of a family, it tells Shih Li-Jen's characters of both being strong and tender, on his way of leading the trend, he pays homage to the eternal aesthetics of classics.

Artist: Qin Weihong (China)

With being inspired and illuminated by the Surrealism, Qin Weihong has developed a certain pattern to express his anti-traditional style. His approaches are in between reality and fiction, fragile state and complex relations are presented figuratively. Ultimately, we were fascinated by those works, simultaneously brought into deep reflections of human kind's thoughts. Subsequently it was developed into interrogation of human’s behaviors. 

Qin Weihong graduated from Department of Sculpture at China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2010. Being China's new rising emerging sculptor, he is reckoned as the representative of his generation. Standing out of large numbers of young artists, his works are distinguishingly characterized with avant-garde style. Spectators are often touched deeply down by the tinges of rich emotions, as well as romantic, poetic and youthful perceptions manifested by Qin’s works. 

Artist: Yura Seo (South Korea)

The process of ‘creating a stack of books’ is similar to ‘slow traveling’. 

While piling up books one by one is rather time consuming, it is associated with the beauty of breathing slowly. As the images and texts hidden in a pile of books that embody distinct individual personality create harmony to produce a work of art, they represent the harsh foundation of our lives full of complexity yet marked with touches of sensibility. 

- Artist's Note

Artist: Yuki Mitsuyasu (Japan)

SHINE Collection

SANTORINI Collection

Raised in Singapore, and later educated at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design London, Yuki Mitsuyasu designs and constructs jewellery intended to tell a story. Carefully crafted into each piece is a narrative, waiting to be recounted, explored, and shared. 

SHINE

“When you choose your partner, his religion, nationality, or wealth does not matter; be with someone who lets you shine, then he is a man worth being with.”- Toshiyuki Mitsuyasu

Shine is characterised by two hearts. Each symbolizing a person. Each bold and unique from the other. Together though, they realize something brighter than if they were apart. On the Shine necklace, the two hearts come together to complete the clasp (and pendant) as a star.

VARUNA

A drop of water runs down a mountain, joins a river, enters the ocean – and serendipitously, finds its way back to the mountain again.

The Varuna collection, named after the god of sky, water and the celestial oceans, recounts this circle of life. The circle of life also connotes the idea of heaven and earth. Interestingly, for people dwelling in the mountains of Himalaya, heaven is not in the sky, but in the ocean. It is where water, the source of life, flows. This is perhaps why the spiritual river Ganges is often revered as a passage to holiness.

SANTORINI

Whitewashed walls, blue domes, square windows, cubist houses that look like they were drawn with pencils. This collection is inspired by Santorini, a little Greek island sculpted by unique architecture and crowned with numerous churches. 

Using the cross as a main motif, the pieces in this collection are constructed with simple, clean lines. The unpolished brushed effect, square holes and blue topaz in these jewellery pieces, are reminiscent of the idyllic landscape of the island.

GO WITH THE FLOW

There is no one right way of wearing this pendant.

By looping each end of the chain through the pendant differently, a different-looking necklace takes shape each time. It all depends on how you choose to position the ends of the chain.

As you wear the necklace, the pendant might still adjust itself to sit more comfortably on your neck, going with the flow.

Artist: Ren Hui (China)

Ren Hui was born in 1957 in Nanjing, China. From 1977-1989 he made his living as a poet and was published in various Asian literature magazines.

Since 1989, Ren Hui has focused on the visual arts, creating paper cut cuts, wood cuts and subsequently, ink on paper and oil on canvas paintings. Aside from solo exhibitions, his works have been featured in galleries and international art fairs in the US, China, Canada, Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia and Singapore. His art has been sold worldwide and can be found in many private collections, including that of Morgan Stanley Investment Bank. Ren Hui maintains a studio in Songzhuang Artists Village in Beijing, China, and in 2011 established a studio in Ottawa, Canada.

Artist: Liu Feng Hua (China)

Since the terracotta warriors were discovered in 1974 by farmers digging for a well in Xian, this life sized and lifelike army has become an icon of China's past, instantly recognizable all over the world. The terracotta warriors were the 8,000 strong underground army buried in Emperor Qin Shi Huang Di's tomb (221 - 207 BC), to protect him in his afterlife.

Liu Feng Hua's sculptures are a wry, witty look at his country's history and future post-Cultural Revolution direction. Two thousand years separate China's first emperor and Mao. But Liu's modern ceramic warriors can be seen as an artistic statement of the morally complicated legacy of these two leaders - both great revolutionary leaders and yet, both great criminals, who have left a lasting legacy on China.

Artist: Tian Mangzi (China)

An apple at first sight, viewers may find this painting of the seemingly ordinary fruit to bear much resemblance to that of the universe upon closer examination. Such is the depiction so portrayed by Chinese artist, Tian Mangzi. Apple was subject matter of choice for Tian Mangzi for through the simple fruit embodies all the dreams and aspirations he has for earth as Utopia. A witness to the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 and stark extremes between the poor and the rich with their overabundance, Tian Mangzi envisions his dream – an Elysium where war and harmful strife is rid of, and the world could be in harmony and free of pollution.

Colors play an important role in the depiction of the paintings. While purple is often associated as the symbol of power and luxury, purple and lilac (a pale tone of violet) also represented mystery and the unknown; things incomprehensible by men. Bluer shades of purple – with a tinge of sunglow – were used to color the apple-earth to remind viewers to remember the more mystical side of the universe. The color green embodies the design of a new planet through which Tian Mangzi is filled with hope – an ideal planet.

Through his art, Tian Mangzi explains, Chinese attitude is to suggest a shape as a hint of the universe. Chinese philosophy is based on emotion rather than logic or rationality. My art has two functions: firstly, to construct an apple, and secondly to try to encourage the viewer to move into a second stage of realizing that the shape represents the universe.The apples/planets are suspended in space, but “space” has been removed so that the dimensional effect remains.”

Artist: Victor Tan (Singapore)

Although a ceramics major, Victor began experimenting with wire in his first year of studies back in 1995.  In Searching for an alternative to pencil and paper for his life-drawing class, he found wire.  With wire, he could draw a line, feel it, then draw the next line, in relation to the last.  This way, he gets feedback which he can’t get through paper and pencil.  The wire sketches were an in-between of 2D drawings and 3D forms.  To him, space is the paper and wire is the pencil strokes. 

Victor has explored with galvanized steel, copper, brass, and now uses mainly stainless steel, of quality L304 or 316.  There is no fear of tarnish nor losing of its qualities over time.  Although a cold material, the finishing of stainless steel gives an attractively pleasing touch and look.  To Victor, perhaps more than anybody else, sculptures should be touched and felt. 

Victor’s sculptures are weaved from just wire, and hence seem colourless.  On a ironic note, the colour on the stainless steel is never the same, instead they absorb and reflect the environment, hence the colour and mood changes accordingly.  Seeing a same work at different times of the day and at different locations creates different dimensions to his between-2and-3D work.  The shadow casts from the sculpture onto a wall creates yet another dimension to the interesting dynamics of the works.  It begs the viewers now to ask, do we look at the 3D work or the 2D drawings on the wall?  

Artist: Yang Tze Yun (Taiwan)

Yang Tze Yun has become a pioneer of calligraphic body-expressionism, and he renewed the interpretation of Asian calligraphy. He started his career in Europe in 1994, participating in Lineart (International Art Fair in Gent, Belgium) in 1995 till now. 

The evolution of writing characters, as is most commonly known in calligraphy, to this non-character based expressionism has brought Chinese calligraphy to a new domain. The symbols are no longer oriental, and have become universally perceived. Yang breathes a contemporary soul into his calligraphy, releasing his energy into the writing and giving much more power to the symbols. 

Artist: Casey Chen (Singapore)

Casey Chen is a rare design-crusader of the Singapore Identity.

Having graduated from RMIT with a Bachelor of Design, Casey Chen has been inthe design and art field for over a decade and is experienced and versatilewith various aspects of design and art. His works have been recognised regionally and internationally in the fields of corporate branding andcorporate identities, and have won him design awards from New York. He hastaken part in international design exhibitions and was commissioned forpublic sculpture work in Singapore.  He is also one of the seven artists whowere invited to design for the National Day Singapore 2010 - Tote BagDesigns.

In his long body of multi-disciplinary works the last decade spanning Design, Objects and the Arts; Casey Chen has always demonstrated an ability to draw in inspiration from what is unique about and around us.

Casey is like a storyteller, weaving in narratives of memories and nostalgia with his whimsical interpretations of familiar objects. His ability to reinvent and re-appropriate these familiar objects and symbols in a mostbold and uncanny manner makes him stand out amongst the designers of his time.

In his seminal yet possibly his simplest work, Casey Chen created a Singapore heart flag. This is his patriotic tribute to the country he loves dearly. A passionate believer of sharing good design, Casey Chen is also the pioneer Singaporean Designer to have showcased his works in Designboom fairs around the world since 2006.

For being a relentless dream chaser of design, a bold and passionate artist.

Artist: Gabby Tiongson (Philippines)

Gabby Tiongson creates beautifully detailed artworks with the most common material, a sharpie marker. Using sure and strong black lines, his precision cuts through paper giving life to his ideas and creations. Design ideas are grafted together using different body parts – human, animal and imagination. Through his background in medicine, he gained confidence to toy around with nature, example, replacing a pig’s ear with a pair of human hands.

Many of his drawings features limbs in the most unusual places, adorned with belly buttons, a reference perhaps to omphalokepsis, navel-gazing, and self-contemplation. Indigenous patterns are used throughout his drawings; the stylized tagalog diagonals add a subtle Filipino essence to what seems, at the first glance, a western sensibility.

His cartoonish style is a culmination of all his influences and obsessions, from animated television shows to fantasy genre computer games (World of Warcraft; Todd McFarlane’s Spawn) and legendary creatures such as the chupacabra.

“Invention,” Mary Shelley writes in the introduction of Frankenstein, “does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.” It is into this creative chaos, this plethora of limbs, that Tiongson invites us. Like Shelley’s protagonist, he is set to “pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.”

Artist: Ida Bagus Indra (Indonesia)

Ida Bagus Indra is a young, self-taught, dynamic Balinese artist whose work is striking and emotional. His aesthetic and spiritual experiences give him a strong grip on the essence of movement, energy and color that infuse the spontaneity of his canvases. Ida Bagus Indra's immense creative spirit show through in his unique, innovative approach to Balinese culture, including traditional and sacred dance, priests and Balinese ceremonies bound to the Hindu faith and philosophy of life. He combines the sacred with familiar aspects of everyday life in revealing and inspired ways, including images of children, women and family that touch the heart of every human being.

Ida Bagus Indra's work is a reflection of his deep and penetrating observation, artistic journeys, and ever-changing understanding of himself as a part of society, his environment, and also his spiritual relation to his Creator and his ancestors.

Born in Denpasar on May 9, 1974 into a family with a long artistic tradition, including his father who is acknowledged as a leading cartoonist of his generation, IBI found his way in the Balinese art world with great enthusiasm.

Ida Bagus Indra launched his first exhibition in 1996 and has not looked back. Ida Bagus Indra is set to become a significant and classic artist of the 21 st century. His canvases are bold, direct. Like his young nation, built on ancient cultures, IBI unites tradition with ultra-modern style. The sweep and energy of his strokes erupts from deep within to illuminate precious moments common to us all, with grace, humor, and compassion 

Artist: Sonny Liew (Singapore)

Sonny Liew is a comic artist , painter and illustrator whose work inclues titles for DC Vertigo, Marvel Comics and Image Comics. He has received Eisner nominations for his art on Wonderland (Disney), as well as for spearheading Liquid City (Image Comics), a multi-volume comics anthology featuring creators from Southeast Asia. His Malinky Robot series was a Xeric grant recipient and winner of the Best Science Fiction Comic Album Award at the Utopiales SF Festival in Nantes (2009).

Liew’s paintings have been exhibited at the La Luz de Jesus Gallery, Black Earth Museum, Mulan Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Chinese Art. He received the Singapore National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award in 2010.

Artist: Mashi (Singapore)

Wendy Chew, aka Mashi, is an illustrator whose childhood was spent watching Disney's animated films of princesses and the 80's cartoons. With that, she gradually develops the passion for drawing, especially drawing girls.

Aspiring to be a Disney 2D animator one day, Wendy went to Nanyang Polytechnic (Singapore) to pursue her studies in Digital Media Design, specialising in animation. Upon graduation in 2003, she worked in the entertainment industry and gained more knowledge about illustrators, comic artists and pin-up art.

The biggest influence for her art style comes from Bruce Timm. His art style inspires her and Wendy

gradually develops her own style which can be seen from her DeviantART gallery at mashi.deviantart.com.

The dream of sharing her passion came true when her art was featured in Udon Entertainment's "Street

Fighter Tribute", Brandstudio Press's "Eye Candy From Strangers Book 2" and "Little Book of Kawaii".

Her strong love for pin-up arts encouraged the self-publish of her art books, "Vitamin C - Art of Wendy

Chew", "The art of Wendy Chew 2" and “Mashi's Sketchbook 1”. She has worked on a few sets of Marvel's sketch cards for Upper Deck Company and DC's sketch cards for Cryptozoic Entertainment. In 2011, she also had the chance to have a small exhibition, “Comic Art Show 2011” with fellow local artists and collarborated with Toysrevil on a t-shirt design, which was sold at 2011's Anime Fair Asia. In 2012, she collaborated with Vinyl on Vinyl to produce her first-ever figurine “Honnie”, and a new version was released at Singapore Toys, Games and Comic Convention 2013.  

To date, she has attended these events; Seattle's Emerald City Comic Convention 2010, Singapore Toys, Games and Comic Convention 2010 - 2013, Anime Fair Asia 2011, Popular's Book Fest 2011 and Malaysia Games and Comics Convention 2012.  

Artist: Anjo Bolarda (Philippines)

Artworks:

Anjo Bolarda does pen and ink renditions that are highly detailed, evoking an edgy contemporary quality to his works. He calls his style the ‘Sukiyaki-Western’, a marriage of Japanese art, western street art and lowbrow illustrations. His style comprises of a lot of flowy florals, female characters known as ‘Nasties’, animals, mythological creatures and typography.

Bolarda’s captivating art works are derived from personal experiences, narratives shared by others, as well as moments of depression. “All my works tell a story. I am able to express my emotions through my art. I tell it with lines and details. I alter my negativities into something creative,” Bolarda offers about his art works. He has successfully channeled his melancholy into inspiring and imaginative art. One is instantly drawn into the mesmerizing linear refinements accompanied by the meticulous renderings creating enormous depth to the drawing; which educes a vintage yet current feel.

Artist Background:

Anjo Bolarda is a self-taught artist whose works have been showcased and exhibited in several international venues: Japan, Shanghai, Singapore, France, Belgium, Germany, US, Spain, London, Malaysia and an upcoming group show in Con Artist Gallery in New York. As a community founder of Behance Philippines, co-founder of Designers of Asia, core member of 98B artCOLLABoratory, a contributor of Get Freaky, an illustration magazine based in France, and an illustrator for LAVIO, an illustration Agency in Barcelona, Spain. Bolarda has a wide avenue in exploring his creative outlets.